The good news is that movie-theatre patrons appear to have stopped yakking on their cellphones during screenings.

The bad news is that many have now taken to emailing, texting, tweeting and employing whatever other silent communications options that their smartphones offer.

At a recent multiplex screening, two women and a man sitting in the row in front of me seemed to have forgotten to turn off their smartphones when the main attraction began. Ever so politely — well, as polite as I can be — I bent forward toward their seats and asked if they would please turn off their devices.

I wasn’t prepared for the response. Or maybe I was.

One of the women said: “I’m just returning some emails. What’s your problem?”

“The light emitted from your cellphone is both distracting and annoying,” I told her. “Besides, you might have noticed that there was a message on screen but a minute ago advising people to shut off their smartphones.”

“Oh, no,” she shot back. “That just means we can’t talk during the movie. But we’re allowed to text and send emails.”

“Ah, not really,” I responded. “The message means put your cellphone away when the show starts.”

After a little more back and forth, she turned off her cellphone.

A few days later at a screening at another theatre, the young couple sitting in front of me actually waited until the film began to turn on their devices. I asked if they wouldn’t mind turning them off.

“Don’t think so,” said the young man. “Look around. Half the people here have their cellphones on.” Pause. “Get a life!”

Sad to say, he was right about the cellphone situation. Okay, maybe not half the people in the house. But enough to make for quite the light show in the theatre.

As for the procuring of a life, as had been requested, I asked, ever so innocently, if there were any for sale at the concession counter.

He laughed. She laughed. No matter. They never turned off their smartphones. And I missed a good five minutes of the movie in futile conversation.

Rather than rat them out to a manager outside, I changed seats. The battle was clearly lost.

Curiously, there is a clever trailer making the rounds of local theatres. Prior to the presentation of the main attraction, the trailer extols the joys of the “big screen” experience. Viewers are shown the same film image from a wee cellphone screen, a 12-inch computer screen, a 48-inch TV screen and a ginormous movie screen. No doubt, the movie experience – from both a visual and sound perspective – appears infinitely more superior to the other options. Not to mention that what also enhances the experience is movie-theatre seating, which has been rendered more comfortable than ever.

Fact is: catching a flick on the big screen is the ultimate experience for many – a larger-than-life escape. Sure, that entails a schlep to the multiplex, not to mention the often-hefty expense of parking, admission and concessions. But the big-screen experience can even compensate for those factors.

What it can’t compensate for is the boorish behaviour of fellow patrons. Even though the incidence of insensitive blabbering on cellphones during screenings seems to have diminished (based on my observations), patrons still talk incessantly. They repeat dialogue for companions who have missed it — maybe because they were texting. They carry on conversations with the actors on screen. They have domestic spats with their mates. They give commentary. They translate — even when the film is in the same language as that of their seatmates.

So it’s no great surprise that many patrons forgo the big-screen experience to watch films on their TVs, computers or cellphones. The home-viewing revolution is hardly an accidental trend.

In the early days of cellphones — that is, those enabling users to text and email — the big joke was that their owners were addicted to their “Crackberries” (when the BlackBerry was the device of choice for many). No joke anymore.

We are a nation of addicts. Some of us junkies are so hooked that we are unable to turn off our smartphones for even a minute — let alone for two hours at a movie. This addiction, coupled with what is clearly a societal case of attention-deficit disorder, doesn’t bode well for any kind of mass viewing experience, be it at the movies or even the opera.

Sure, better that folks text or tweet in a movie theatre rather than at the wheel of their vehicles. But what astonished me most about my encounters with the smartphone-wielding patrons at the theatre: how incredulous they were about being asked to turn off their devices.

Emily Post had qualms about social etiquette in the last century, well before all these technological innovations became so much part of our lives. Today, Post would be mortified, spitting up her popcorn in horror.

And well intentioned though they may be, theatre personnel are too undermanned to enforce the rules and bust the perps.

Meanwhile, I have learned to cope — mostly by sitting in less-populated sections of the theatre. So it goes. But at least I didn’t get maced like the man at a Hollywood theatre Monday night who had the temerity to ask a woman to turn off her device.

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